Weight Loss Nutrition for Cyclists, How to Learn from Races, and More – Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast 418

I think it’s a pretty common belief that carbs make you fat, which is just the wildest fallacy I can imagine, but I will admit it’s an easy way to cut out calories for some from a practical standpoint. I would think that most people find it easier to eat a normal steak, some veggies, and two potatoes instead of four at dinner, as supposed to eating four potatoes, some veggies, and cutting a ribeye in half to save it for later. Cutting out starches seems more intuitive to many people, I think…

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You should do that experiment and let us know!

Personally, I’m guessing that the way to train and lose weight is to prioritize cutting out the fat and crap food. Cut out the burgers, pizza, butter, fatty meats and alcohol. Favor lean meats, eggs, beans, and tofu for protein. Eat healthy carbs for replenish glycogen stores (fruit, sweet potatoes, plain potatoes, brown rice, quinoa, other veggies, etc). The muscle glycogen debt is probably what kills training and ftp gains.

Honestly, I’m not sure what the critical expect of the TR podcast crew. Why are they going to have some secret dieting formula? They are a bunch of skinny people who seem to have never struggled to lose that last 10 pounds after having been over weight for a long period of time. Other than calories in/calories out, weight your food, count calories with an app, give up alcohol, and all the usual recommendations what are they going to say? There’s no secret sauce.

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I think for me it’s more a function of what I prefer eating. I’d much rather have some fatty chicken wings than a giant plate of mashed potatoes or something. I just dont particularly enjoy most carb based foods. That said…yea carb centric foods are better for training, and certainly better for keeping food volume up relative to fats…

If I’m keeping weight stable and am training I have room for everything honestly. In a deficit something has to go…

This is the no-brainer for losing weight. Cut out fat (especially non-healthy saturated fat) except for some olive oil, avocado here and there, and cut out Alcohol. Fats in things like lean chicken, fish - I don’t count those as bad. Cutting out Fried foods is another no-brainer.

You need adequate carbs and protein, fats and alcohol are 100% indulgences.

Alcohol isn’t good for you in any amount, it’s really just a poison. Cut it out and you’ll be better off (And yes, I drank a bunch of red wine the past weekend, and I do enjoy a glass of bourbon or a beer here and there)

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The carbs that make people fat are the ones wrapped in fat. A potato contains about 100 calories - it’s hardly anything. One pat of butter (and who uses one?) is another 100 calories. If you go for the sour cream on top of it, one has tripled the amount of calories in a potato.

Fructose has been shown to trigger fat storage so guzzling soda (high fructose corn syrup) all day is probably some good calories to cut out.

Yep, this is all stuff I know. The issue is when preference and math collide :joy:

But now is the time…I’m moving out of base 1…build block will be starting in july…it’s time to bite the bullet and just eat like an athlete instead of a sort of healthier than the average person person…

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After eating a typical overweight American’s diet for most of my life, I went Keto several years ago when it was all the rage. I thought I’d be the happiest man alive eating nothing but steak, but it didn’t take long to realize I’d sell my soul for a plate of pasta. I lost a lot of weight, but couldn’t sustain it.

I quit eating red meat a few years ago. I can tell you, the cravings for pasta while keto were FAR FAR worse than any craving I’ve ever had for red meat. The only one that gets me once in a while is the smell of bacon. You can easily replace red meat with some shrimp or fish and you don’t really miss it. Trying to replace pasta, rice, and potatoes with broccoli was MUCH worse for me.

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Same. I very rarely eat red meat. Never really miss it. Even out at restaurants I’ll get a turkey burger over beef. It’s just not something I enjoy enough to justify indulging in.

It’s cheese, alcohol, pizza, and late night snacking that are always the culprits for me.

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Huh. Well did the math…my little rice cooker cup is 150g…usually make one of those at a time, and split it into two meals. With protein and a bunch of veggies it’s a nice size meal.

But really the full 150g is only 500 calories. Going a bit lower fat content with the meal…that’s a reasonable calorie count and a ton of food…

no problem - here it is and i think this should be accessible to all but let me know if it is not.

And yes they phrase it better than I did of course! Essentially the ability to “burn” calories with exercise is not fully efficient in that it is not 100%- it is 72% on average. But this number goes down (so less efficient burn- i.e. what you do not want for weight loss goal) with adiposity.

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Yeah no-one has the mental strength or lack of joy to be eating 3kg of brown rice a day…

As long as you can tolerate gluten, pasta without a fatty sauce is a good source of carbs & protein.
13g-15g protein per 100g dry weight, 359 calories.
150g of cooked pasta looks like an enormous amount of food.

Made much better with loads of olive oil/butter, but probably healthier without.

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Also, @NateP

Check out this pod:

Similar idea with mostly approaching weight loss in the offseason but they aren’t as afraid to actually talk about how to lose weight.

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Yep I make pasta regularly also. I should actually do it more often. I use my grandfathers meat sauce recipe generally…lightening things up a bit. ~75 yr old recipe, and sub in lean ground turkey for the beef, and just use enough olive oil to sweat the garlic/veggies in.

Either that or a super quick pasta with some garlic/anchovy/pepper flakes. So good, plus it makes my wife complain about the smell in the house, so that’s a bonus.

I’d rather starve to be honest. I’m fully convinced anyone who eats brown rice by choice enjoys stepping on legos too.

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I like it better for fried rice honestly. Holds up a bit better to reusing/frying.

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I can see that point, but fried rice is vastly different to eating it on its own😂 I probably couldn’t eat as much white rice as I do without ANY condiments, but I could still get down at least half with ease. However, I won’t touch brown rice with a ten foot pole unless some real culinary magic has been performed on it…

Oh interesting…are you just eating the rice plain??? :grimacing:

Adding…well just finished 150g of dry rice…So I’m like 10% of the way to where you are :joy:

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As someone who literally eats nothing but fruit, rice, sugar, potatoes, vegetables, cereals and other starches, I can say with 100% honesty that I never miss animal products, at all. As long as I satisfy my hunger whenever it appears, I don’t ever crave anything but what I normally eat. This is coming from someone that consumed animal products for more than 20 years.

There is, however, one caveat. Food is more than just numbers and performance - it’s a social event too. While I don’t miss the flavour of ribeye steak, I miss barbecuing in the garden with my dad, late night trips to McDonald’s, and making grilled cheese sandwiches with my soup. Of course I can still partake in these activities, but it just isn’t quite the same. For me, the pros outweigh the cons, but every choice has consequences.

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Not usually, but I mean that I COULD eat a lot of plain white rice while I couldn’t eat a lot of plain brown rice! I typically eat my rice with cinnamon and sugar if I’m in the mood for something sweet (which is pretty much always), and otherwise I may go with some ketchup, tomato sauce, BBQ sauce, etc. I don’t cook my rice with salt so both sweet and savoury options work :wink: